40 Bags in 40 Days: Days 15, 16 and 17

Again, I find myself playing catch-up, at least in documenting this process.  But I haven't fallen off the wagon yet!  As you'll recall, this whole "program" ostensibly coincides with Lent, with Sundays being the "days off."  Well, my "day off" last week was Thursday, because that was the day my mom arrived and I knew there would just be a lot going on (so, it was totally not a "day off" in the sense of actual rest, just a "day off" from the 40 Bags challenge!).  I wanted to leave some of the biggest jobs for the weekend because I'd have her help, so Sunday would be a work day - and we got so much done!!

I love my sewing room SO MUCH.  Having a dedicated space for my machine, patterns, books and tools is seriously awesome.  Before renting this house, Eamon and I had only lived in one-bedroom or studio apartments, which meant that if I wanted to sew, I first had to find a surface big enough, flat enough, and stable enough for cutting and measuring as well as actually placing my machine on, then I would do whatever I was doing for that given project, and then it all had to be put away somewhere so we'd still have a functional living room.  I actually asked for a big folding table for my birthday one year, and that was a pretty good solution, but it wasn't perfect.  Now a sewing room is going to be a "must-have" for every new home because it's just so great to be able to leave everything "as is" in the midst of a project and come back to it later; it's really hard to get any momentum on something if you have to take the time to remember what you were doing and where you were on a project.  When I was pregnant I did a ton of sewing - mostly making maternity wear for myself and a few small baby projects here and there, but after Bug arrived, it was pretty much out of sight out of mind where the sewing room was concerned.  I completely neglected it and didn't even want to go back in because it was such a mess!!

Well, I don't even know how many bags/boxes of stuff we hauled out of there - maybe 10-15 all together??  Recycling, trash, giveaway/donate - plus we organized all the gift wrapping stuff, put away all the dresslengths and bits of fabric I had enough of to save, and put all of my historical costuming stuff in one box so it's easy to find.  What a transformation!!

Now that's a room I want to sew in!!

The sewing room was a particularly exhausting endeavor (toward the end of the day I got really snappish at my poor mother, who was only trying to help) so when she left on Monday I gave myself permission to take a breather.  Tuesday was another digital day - I pared down the backlog on my DVR to a much more manageable (and realistic) list of shows.  For example, I record The Daily Show and Colbert Report every day, and I love both of their takes on the news, but lately it's just been impossible to keep up, so I narrowed those down to ones where I was really interested in the guest interview.  

This Wednesday I tackled the bathroom.  The sink had become an eyesore, and the bathtub wasn't much better.  I have a bad habit of buying toiletries and what my mother calls "lotions and potions" and not using all of them, so I wind up with a million half-empty bottles lining the bathtub shelves.  I took out a bag of recycling/trash and neatened the surfaces.  I think it's a big improvement.    

Yes, there's still a lot of stuff out in view, but the difference is it's all stuff we use every day.  Both areas are more streamlined, too.
 
Onward and upward...